-- by Dave
According to Mark Potok at Hatewatch, the country's white supremacists are actually looking forward to the prospect of Barack Obama winning the presidency -- but only because they're certain he will fail:
It’s not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country’s radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.
“He will make things so bad for white people that hopefully they will finally realize how stupid they were for admiring these jigaboos all these years,” “Darthvader” wrote on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network web forum. “I believe in the motto ‘Worse is Better’ and Obama certainly fits that description.” Just last week, Ron Doggett, a Virginian who has been a key activist in the Klan, the paramilitary White People’s Party and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, chimed in with this: “I hope Obama wins because in four years, white people just might be pissed off enough to actually do something. … White people aren’t going to do a thing until their toys are taken away from them. So things have to be worse for things to be better.”
“Oh man,” enthused “Centimanus” on the white nationalist Stormfront website. “I am gleefully, sadistically looking forward to Obama as president. … It will be a beautiful day when the masses look at the paper and truly realize they have lost their own country. Added “Fulimnata”: “To the average white man and woman, they could look at Obama and see plain as day that whites are not in control.” Another message, from “TheLastOfMyKind,” agreed: “Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black, muslim [sic] rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites throughout the nation.” “Actually,” said another poster, “if Obama were to win, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Klan. They would have massive growth.” And “TeutonicLegion” said that “a whole bunch of people will join us and find these boards” if Obama becomes president.
Strangely (well, perhaps not that strangely), this is remarkably similar to the line of thinking promoted a couple of months ago by NRO's John Derbyshire, when he urged readers to "Imagine an Obama presidency overwhelmed and floundering" and predicted: "Nonblacks will flee from the Democrats in droves, though. A Republican landslide in the 2010 midterms (think 1994); a clear GOP victory in 2012 (think 1980)."
Of course, none of them seem to have considered the prospect of what will happen if an Obama presidency succeeds -- which, I guess, should be expected, considering their blind spots. Especially the ramifications for improving black-white race relations and the succeeding diminution of old-style white supremacy and its irrational, obsessive hatefulness.
But believe me, a lot of us have.
Of course, it's easy to dismiss such "analysis" as mere racist ranting, but there's also a significant element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the vitriol. That is, these folks have every intent of doing their damnedest to see find a way to make Obama's presidency fail.
If you thought the far right went nuts in the 1990s -- when the Democratic president was a white Southern male -- just wait till there's a President Obama. Progressives should be bracing for it.
[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]
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